


out of gas, out of road (you will come down soon too)

by Anonymous



Category: Let's Play Cyberpunk Red - Polygon (Web Series)
Genre: Burger Centric, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt No Comfort, Missing Persons, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:41:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28622721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Vang0 officially disappears on March 23rd, 2040. The exact time unknown, but whatever conspires that morning takes place before Burger wakes up.If he’s being honest with himself; he’s seen it coming for a little while now. Vang0 isn’t the routine type, he’s young and whip-smart and drinks so much Redbull that the stuff must pump through his veins.Burger’s an old dog. Older than Vang0 by at least two years, he’s sure. He doesn’t have much, and god doesn’t that sound cliche, but he’s stupid and optimistic- and really. He must’ve known somewhere deep down that the kid wouldn’t stay....Or, the missing person fic where Vang0 (you guessed it-) goes missing, Burger vehemently pretends nothing is wrong until he doesn't, and Dasha needs a break, told in snippets over the span of a few months.Written for the PCPR Mini Big Bang 2020!
Relationships: Burger Chainz & Dapper Dasha, Burger Chainz & Vang0 Bang0
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11
Collections: Anonymous, PCPR Mini Big Bang 2020





	out of gas, out of road (you will come down soon too)

**Author's Note:**

> Well, we made it! and it's only 8 days after the original posting date!
> 
> First of all, id like to thank the mods for helping us with deadlines and fixing any problems that arose. Second of all, this story has art! it's by @cottagejockfriends on Tumblr, and it's fantastic. Thank you for working with all my drafts and things I sent at the last minute. Here's the link to their art! https://cottagejockfriends.tumblr.com/post/639710564587831296/this-is-the-piece-i-did-for-pcprminibigbang
> 
> Thank you also to alec, who has read this god knows how many times and is just generally very supportive. i probably should've asked for a beta lmao.
> 
> This is the first thing I've written in over a year, and I'm just getting back into the saddle, so id like to apologize if this sucks ass lmao. Enjoy!
> 
> I'm dyke-crossing on Tumblr and weedskeleton#4951 on discord! feel free to say hi to me.
> 
> Title is from Out of Gas by Modest Mouse.

Vang0 officially disappears on March 23rd, 2040. The exact time unknown, but whatever conspires that morning takes place before Burger wakes up.

If he’s being honest with himself; he’s seen it coming for a little while now. Vang0 isn’t the routine type, he’s young and whip-smart and drinks so much Redbull that the stuff must pump through his veins. 

Burger’s an old dog. Older than Vang0 by at least two years, he’s sure. He doesn’t have much, and god doesn’t that sound cliche, but he’s stupid and optimistic- and really. He must’ve known somewhere deep down that the kid wouldn’t stay. He’s got a nasty drug habit, (the likes of which even Dasha hasn't seen before) that Burger can't support and a look in his eyes like he wants the world- and yet Burger cant even buy him a fake ID. 

This'll happen sometimes, "the coming and going," as Dasha so aptly dubbed it. Vang0’ll disappear for a week if they're lucky, a month if they're not, but never longer than that. 

No use crying over spilled milk, he supposes.

* * *

It hits the two-week mark, still without even so much as a text, and Burger begins to get this creeping suspicion that something’s wrong. He knows it’s irrational, knows he’s worrying too much, but it won’t go away. No matter how many times he types and deletes and retypes a “Hey Vang0, it's Burger, how’re you doing?” message. 

He doesn’t own Vang0, doesn’t think anyone could, really. He’s just another guy for Vang0 to fall in love with, and really that’s fine with him. 

Vang0 gets paid to do ‘this sort of stuff’ anyway- whatever that means. The extra money has to come from somewhere, after all. But knowing Vang0 'this sort of stuff' could range from prostitution to being in a circus. It’s all fair, because holy fuck, is Vang0 talented, quick at whatever he puts his mind to. And who is Burger to tell him what to do and not to do? But Burger hasn’t paid so much as a cent, though, for all of Vang0's antics. And whenever he tries to bring it up Vang0 laughs like there’s this colossal joke that he doesn’t get.

He doesn’t mind not getting it. He doesn’t get a lot of things. 

* * *

He visits Dasha on the 10th of April, exactly two weeks and four days after Vang0’s sudden disappearance. Not that anybody’s counting. Not that it matters enough for him to deny if he  _ were _ counting. Not that- whatever. 

Dasha’s leaning on the sill and smoking out the window when he opens the door to her apartment. It’s unlocked, as always, and the bell chimes, announcing his arrival. She looks back at him briefly, an automatic response, and then nods as a greeting. There are two kids perched on her kitchen counter, and they stare at Burger as he tiptoes inside- whatever conversation they were having indefinitely halted. He’s increasingly aware of how much he fills the tiny apartment; stepping over assorted trash, guitar picks, and Dasha’s bass. The both of them (the kids) have to be around 15, which saddens him immensely, but at least they’re with Dasha. She’ll take good care of them. 

Dasha’s apartment has become this sort of one-stop hotel around the neighborhood. People, usually kids, will drop by for a week or two. Dasha will feed them, clothe them. Give them her number, with the instruction to call if anything ever goes south. He knows she doesn't hear from the majority of them after they leave, she must know she isn't going to, by now. But she goes through the song and dance anyway. Watches as they cross the threshold of her tiny, shitty, one bed two bath apartment and disappear into the night. 

She's a good egg, that Dasha. 

The two kids on Dasha’s counter glace to her, and they share a look that Burger can't even begin to decipher before they deem him safe and unfurl themselves against the cheap granite. Burger smiles, but he's too stressed to fake happiness, and with his nerves going haywire and his metal jaw, it must look like a grimace. Damn.

Dasha crushes her cigarette into an ashtray and gives Burger a look like she can see right through him. It unsettles him, to the highest degree, but if he knows anything about dasha, he knows not to look away. Eventually, she closes her eyes and tips back her head, and then lets out a high laugh, like she knows something he doesn't. 

“Wow. You look like shit, man,” she says, finally. There’s no malicious intent, no venom behind the words- instead she's smiling like Burger hasn't quite picked up on an inside joke that's only shared between the smell of weed that lingers and sticks to everything and the dingy apartment walls. At this point, Burger is getting pretty fucking tired of inside jokes. 

“I feel like shit,” he replies and practically falls onto one of the stools that line her kitchen. Dasha laughs at him again, this time a little softer and a little more forgiving. Like she knows full well that Burger isn't in the mood.

"Well,” she says, standing up from her place, perched against the window, “Get over here, big guy." 

He knows what to do. 

He sidles over, attempting and failing to avoid the heaps of (presumably) dirty clothes, food wrappers, and unspecified documents, piled tediously one on top of another. By the time he reaches Dasha’s pulled-from-the-side-of-the-freeway couch, she’s already leaning against one of the beaten arms- legs swung over the musty seat cushion- as if trying to wordlessly offer the space to Burger, but not afraid of taking it up herself.

He reaches the couch and sits down; then swings his legs up, laying them over the armrest. He’s far too tall to lay stretched comfortably on the couch, something Vang0 would poke fun at whenever they- ...and he's not going down that train of thought, no siree. He's spent enough of his waking moments thinking about Vang0.

From his place on the couch, Dasha smells like cigarette smoke, (which isn't that surprising, seeing as she was just smoking) pumpkin spice, and the unmistakable funk which tells him that it's been a little while since she’s changed these clothes- not that Burger can comment. He's been sporting this tank top for the past few days and hasn't taken this particular jean jacket off in at least a year.

She sighs fondly, another one of her endearing contradictions, and gently tugs his hair, pulling his head into her lap. He squirms around, trying to get comfortable as he uses her thighs as his pillow. And she pulls a blanket from god knows where, the one Burger had knitted for her, and throws it over him unceremoniously. Even as he closes his eyes, he can see the haphazard craftsmanship- the thing’s practically falling apart, and it's only a few years old.

He can feel the cigarette burns etched into the couch as he traces the seat cushions with his calloused fingers, catches glimpses of the map of water stains spread across the ceiling, like a familiar face. Dasha idly plays with his hair and says something he doesn't hear, and doesn't care to, to the kids still sitting on her counter

It's the best sleep he’s gotten in a while. 

* * *

Vang0’s been gone for exactly one month when Burger allows himself to  _ finally _ start worrying. 

It's not like he hasn't been concerned up until this moment, of course he has been, Vang0 is his dear... whatever. And he’d be beside himself if something were to happen to him. But he’s allowed Vang0 a customary 1 month grace period, and now all the things he's been telling himself don't seem to apply. He’s sure Vang0 would tell him if he would be going missing for longer than a month, after all, he must know by now that Burger has the biggest tendency to worry over the smallest things. And it's not like Vang0 has a reason to avoid him- does he? There had been no fight before his departure, no big collision, or a heartbreaking screaming match. In fact, just the night of the 22nd they had been hotboxing in Burger’s van, the bestist of buddies.

Vang0 had blown a cloud of smoke into Burger's face as if just to see his expression when he swatted it away, and maybe if he had stared longingly at Vang0's lips like a lovesick puppy, that was his beast of burden. They had talked about who knows what, probably insignificant at the time, but right now Burger wishes he remembered more than anything. Argued over whether Dasha’s band was riot grrrl or queercore, maybe. Or laughed about whatever antics Vang0’s dealer is up to these days. And Burger had listened, of course he had, what other choice was there? He'd listen to Vango babble out nonsense as he choked Burger to death, hearts in his eyes. He's so fucking far gone.

And then, like clockwork, the next morning Vang0 had vanished.

He sits up from his bed of balled up clothes and mismatched blankets, careful not to hit his head on the ceiling of the van. He purposely does not look over at Vang0’s bed, the indent of his small body eroding away. Instead, he sighs, scrubs the sleep from his weary eyes and runs his fingers through his hair in way of brushing it, and climbs into the front seat with as little effort as possible. He doesn't drive to Dasha’s. He doesn't think she can help him with this- he knows that under all her forced nonchalance that she's as worried about Vang0 as he is, no use pressing the issue to her. Instead, he idles for a few minutes in the alleyway he's been loitering in, head in his hands as he attempts to get his bearings.

It takes a little while.

* * *

The day after that he starts doing rounds. Nothing out of the ordinary at first. He sticks to his schedule, picks up packages, and drives them from one nowhere to another. he doesn't ask what he's transporting. and his employers are far too happy not to tell. But between deliveries, he hits up the places he knows Vang0 frequents. A shady pawnshop that's really a front for the only remaining arcade in the city. Alleyways that he's been dragged too, whether to pick Vang0 up or drop him off. A bar that the kid is always talking about.

He finds jack shit. Nada. Zero. Zilch. Absolutely fucking nothing. 

The people he seeks out are few and far between, and they either know about as much as Burger does, or refuse to even acknowledge that they recognize Vang0's name.

He checks Vang0's Jumptrash profile, but his confirmed inactivity tells him what he's already guessed: Vang0's gone. He checks Vang0s streams, and somehow finds even less information there- His VODS have been taken down, his profile set to private. What's more, the thing that even he will admit genuinely hurts: Burger has had his modding privileges revoked. Even if Vang0 had streamed in the last month, Burger wouldn't know. He mentally curses himself for not asking Dasha when he practically invited himself into her apartment. 

He stops taking deliveries, lets the club he acts as a bouncer at know that he's taking an undetermined amount of time off. He has more important things to attend to.

* * *

He doesn't put up a notice online, doesn't hand out missing person fliers or tape Vang0s face to the streetlights. That would be exceptionally foolish, even for him. Instead, he asks Dasha to ask everyone and anyone who stays at her apartment to ask about Vang0. Dasha initially rolls her eyes and sighs, but when she sees that Burger is dead serious she begrudgingly agrees, muttering something under her breath about him worrying too much. Usually, he'd call her out on it, because Dasha has this nasty habit of quietly making the worst jabs, but he lets it slide just this once. Only partly because they both know she's at least a little bit right. 

With his day (and night) jobs momentarily suspended, and Dasha temporarily banning him from her apartment, with the claim that all his nervous pacing will wear down her floors, he rolls himself a joint with Vang0's (supposedly) fancy, i.e. expensive, weed and drives down to the docks.

He passes the fishermen early morning trash-fishing, the usual suspects smoking off the roof of the public bathrooms, an array of boats: the variety ranging from dinghies haphazardly tied off to whatever must've been closest at the time to yachts chained snuggly to cleat hitches, their unused decks a gaudy sign of wealth- And sits down at the end of the pier, dangling his legs over the water as he rests his upper body on the rusted railing. 

He's not technically supposed to smoke here, but it's far too early for tourists and do-gooders to be up, and the pigs don't usually hang around here unless they get a heads up that someone is stealing one of the fucking mega yachts. He takes another hit, relaxing slightly as the smoke fills his lungs and gets exhaled out of his mouth, and watches the smoke twist and disperse in the morning's cold air.

He's lonely. It's the first time he's been lonely in a year, and it hits him hard. 

Fuck.

* * *

He bribes and begs and threatens his way into the office of one of Vang0's... 'associates.' He goes back and forth on telling Dasha, he could definitely use the reassurance, and god knows he needs the company- But Dasha has been somewhat of a loose cannon as of late. With Vang0 still missing, they're both on edge. And unfortunately for both of them, that's manifested itself in way of both anxiety and a dangerously short temper. And Burger hesitates to even let her know that he's meeting this man. 

Logically, he knows he should. Vang0 is her friend as well, and Dasha has been out of her mind with worry him. He knows that keeping secrets from her leads to nothing but trouble, and it's been well established in his mind by now that while Dasha is fair, she's also a force to be reckoned with. 

But something stops him, every time. He feels himself choking on the words as he tries to invite her, like some invisible thing is lodged in the back of his throat. Dasha doesn't ask, just side-eyes him and moves on, and he loves and hates her in equal measures for it.

In the end, he gives up and doesn't tell her.

He walks to the building, thinks his van would look too ramshackle, cheap, out of place. Judging by his luck as of late, it'd get towed. His "office" is a huge, towering thing, and it seems like the farther up Burger looks the farther it extends its reach into the sky. It's meant to be intimidating, and it's sure as hell doing it's job. 

The guards don't let him in at first, which he supposes is fair. He's scruffy from the lack of self-care and dirty because he's been feeling too shitty to wash his clothes. He's been denied access to a lot of places, intended solely for the citizens of Night City who can afford to pay to play. 

He tells them about his predicament, his appointment with their big boss man. He fought tooth and nail for this one, exhausted every single fucking favor he was owed. By every club owner and every shady alley-goers. He had been all over the city, delivering messages and threatening snitches and doing all sorts of odd jobs, just to keep this shred of hope that Vang0 didn't leave them voluntarily alive. Several red herrings, a wild goose chase, and a lot of gas money spent later, and this man is the only lead he has on Vang0's whereabouts.

And if these two shitheads don't let him in when he's so fucking close. Well.

Thankfully it doesn't come to that. Some associate inside spots him and flashes his badge to the guards, who reluctantly stand down. This new man ushers Burger inside, chattering about things that don't matter as he pats down Burger, checking for concealed weapons. And then leads him down a hallway to seemingly nowhere, the entrance of which is framed with a metal detector. The man looks uncomfortable, like he's not sure what to do with Burger's jaw, and it'd almost be enough to make him laugh if he doesn't always feel on the verge of tears these days.

After an internal battle that seems to go nowhere, the man pulls him through the metal detector and lets it beep incessantly as he practically yanks Burger around a corner. There are so many twists and turns in the architecture, which he supposes is intentional, an easy way to keep one time visitors from memorizing the layout.

After maybe the sixth or seventh right turn, they reach a well-lit hall, which at the end of stands a single elevator. The man quiets for the first time in the 5 minutes Burger has known him- which should be a blessing, but suddenly the lack of noise feels like a curse in and of itself. His message is simple. I go no further. 

Burger walks down the hallway alone. He pushes the button and the doors glide open immediately, without so much as a stutter, welcoming him into the well maintained but obviously rarely used compartment. There's only one button on the stainless steel panel next to the door, and he presses it and steels his reserve, hoping he can be half as brave as he pretends to be. He takes a deep breath and lets it out as the doors close and the attendant and the maze of hallways fades from view. 

It feels like a death sentence.

* * *

To the bigwig's credit, the meeting itself is incredibly short and to the point, practically the opposite of the elevator ride, which Burger suspects is just to build anticipation in particularly weak-willed clients. Burger is nothing of the sort. 

The man himself is framed in front of a huge panel of windows, which stretch and take up practically the entire wall behind his desk. From how far up they are, Burger can't see anything out of the windows but clouds and sickly polluted sky, he doubts you could see the ground from up here, but he doesn't venture over the windows to see. He stands there, and waits for this rich man in his skyscraper that touches the heavens to speak.

He doesn't. He doesn't even spare Burger a glance, doesn't look up from what he's doing. He's balding, hair white and almost gone. His suit is well-tailored but looks like it's only been worn once, like he has the luxury of discarding clothes after a single day of use. And, funnily enough, he's smoking a cigar in an ironic mockery of olden crime bosses. And Burger suddenly can't remember why he was ever afraid of this sad, old man. He's tackled scarier things than him. Things with gnashed teeth and things with hungry eyes.

The man grunts, an acknowledgment of Burger's presence, his voice gravelly with smoke and years of use, and pulls a sticky note off of a nearby stack. Burger watches as he scribbles an address on it, and pushes to the end of his desk without so much as a second thought, the info there, plain and simple, for Burger to retrieve. He picks it up and looks back down at the busy man, who sighs like Burger is just another occurrence in the string of disruptions to his schedule and snaps his fingers and points to the elevator, a blatant invitation to leave. 

Burger takes it without having to be told twice. He puts the address in his pocket, too scared to look at it just yet, and counts the tiles in the ceiling as the elevator begins its slow descent. 

* * *

It's only when he's reached his van, parked six blocks away and hidden in an overlooked alleyway, that he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the sticky note. He closes his eyes, uncrumples it from his place in his sweaty, nervous grip. Takes one final deep breath. And opens his eyes.

It takes a little while to process what he's actually seeing. 

He can feel the ice in his veins, can see himself pulling the driver's side door open with a little too much force before he's actually aware of what he's doing. Feels the key turn in the ignition before he can process that he's in the car. 

* * *

In some weird, twisted irony, it ends where it began. In a warehouse he shouldn't be in, searching for something he shouldn't have lost in the first place. 

His driving must've been erratic at best, but speaking realistically, he can't remember any of it. He knows the mechanism of getting from point A to point B well, knows he must have turned the key and followed some semblance of traffic laws, (otherwise he'd be on the side of the road, getting a nasty scolding from a cop) and knows that it should've taken him around 10 minutes to get here- but when he focuses on the journey itself, in retrospect, its nothing but a blur of emotions and a foot on the gas pedal.

He hops out of the van, distantly aware of the fact that he clicks his keys and can hear the beep of the lock sound somewhere behind him. Feels his feet against the mess of gravel and concrete, and thinks somewhere in the back of his mind of calling Dasha. 

He grabs the sliding door and yanks it open roughly, without a second thought for its quality or for the noise he must be making.

There's a man inside. A man with a mustache and an unmistakable blonde bob, dressed in ripped clothes- a fishnet stocking hugging one leg and a (now slightly stained) knee-high schoolgirl-Esque sock adorning the other.

It seems like burger cant get to him fast enough. He grabs the man- more of a kid, really. And pulls him flush to his chest, swinging him around the empty warehouse in his joy. He puts up no resistance but most notably doesn't hug back, which Burger pins on the shock of whatever Vang0 has just experienced. He sets him down after a little while- when he's sure that Vang0 won't disappear when Burger isn't touching him. That this man won't slip out of his grip again. Instead, he frames Vang0's head in his hands, noting how he can almost encircle it with his palms.

"Vang0." He says. The name feels foreign on his tongue in the most precious way, like coming home after a long day, or listening to the most beautiful music where there once was only silence.

"Who's Vang0?" the man asks.

They'll manage. 

**Author's Note:**

> once again, art by cottagejocktalks on Tumblr! here's the link: https://cottagejockfriends.tumblr.com/post/639710564587831296/this-is-the-piece-i-did-for-pcprminibigbang
> 
> and I'm dyke-crossing on Tumblr and weedskeleton#4951 on discord. Comments are greatly appreciated because we all know that I'm a sucker for praise.
> 
> Title is from Out of Gas by Modest Mouse.


End file.
